Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Justice, Prof. Dr. Hajredin Kuçi today participated in a roundtable discussion on "The rights of citizens and accountability in the justice system", organized as part of the campaign "Justice and citizens."
In this occasion Minister Kuçi said: "It is increasingly important that discussions on justice, particularly on the judiciary, have more attention on the rights of citizens. Although justice and the rights of citizens are directly related to each other, it happens that reality often keeps them away from each other. It is therefore very important that, like today, they are always discussed as two closely related issues, or dependent to each other.

We are all witnessing the fact that the Kosovo judiciary does not function as we would like to. As a result, citizens often feel that their rights cannot be realized in the best way and this causes disappointment among them.

But, it should also be noted that the judicial and legal system in Kosovo has gone through a very difficult phase. Moreover, attempts to reform it constantly, though well-intentioned, have often made our judicial system spend much time dedicated to reforms. Large number of cases, along with many problems inherited from the past, has made the work of our judicial system much harder than any other system in the region or elsewhere.

So far, this has made our judicial system understood by our citizens. The transition through which Kosovo has passed, along with the judiciary, has directed a great job towards the full safeguard of independence of the judiciary and the prosecution, in order to ensure that Kosovo will not suffer any negative effects of transition, like many other countries around us.
Since getting the Ministry of Justice under my leadership, I have invested a lot of time and work to ensure that the judiciary and the prosecution have ideal conditions for a well functioning. In addition to the fact that this power is already separated from the executive and functions separately, our Ministry has proposed a constitutional amendment, which was approved by the Constitutional Court, and which will soon be adopted. This amendment will enable the majority of the Judicial Council members to be chosen by the judiciary and not by the Assembly. This, however, will add even more independence to the judiciary.

It should be added that although the Judicial and Prosecutorial Councils formally submit their budget to the Ministry of Finance in order to be introduced in the Budget Law, their budget requests, at least over the past three years, have never been rejected. Salaries of judges and prosecutors are connected with those of Ministers and state leaders, in order to ensure that the position of a judge is not inferior to other state positions.

At the same time, it has been invested heavily in the proper legal infrastructure, so that judges and prosecutors have all the necessary means, all the legal power that can be given in order to enable a better functioning in protecting the citizens' rights.

However, it must be admitted that in the name of independence, the accountability of the judiciary often missed, but this is where it should be taken very carefully.

I think that in the coming period, the judiciary should pay more attention to the transparency of the work it does. It should be noted that our judges and prosecutors are doing a very good job. Unfortunately, only their errors are reflected in the media and among citizens. Therefore, the judiciary must do more to convey the work that they do to the public, to prove that a good job is being done indeed.

It should be noted that the judiciary has a system of self-improvement and this has already started showing its results. The case of Diana Kastrati, decided by the Constitutional Court proves such a thing. I think that self-correction of the judiciary in Kosovo will continue to serve even more in the future and this will make people feel safer at home and feel that their institutions address their concerns appropriately.

In the amendments that the Ministry of Justice is doing together with the Judiciary and Prosecution in the package of laws on the judiciary, is being planned to introduce the obligation for courts to publish all their judgments on the website. This will not only make their work more transparent and more accessible to the citizens, but also will self-oblige judges and prosecutors to care about the quality of their decision-making.

All these are made so that the judiciary does not lose its accountability towards the citizens of Kosovo. And until this is done automatically by the judiciary itself, other branches of the central government should take care in making it a legal norm. So, today I remind you that we are working hard in this direction and this is done in order to increase the credibility of the judiciary. The American political activist Thomas Paine cited "a body of people who does not report to anyone is not to be believed by anyone" and we would not like this to happen to our judiciary."